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Saturday, 3 September 2016

America’s Desperately Wrong Foreign Policy.

If you want to study the weakness
of American foreign policy under the Obama-Clinton-Kerry Administration, just
look at the Turkish-Kurdish-Syrian triangle.

America’s formal position is that
it opposes the Assad regime, that it looks on Turkey as a close ally, and that
it arms the Kurds in their fight against ISIS.

ISIS is considered a potentially
major threat within America and must be eliminated. The Kurds have been the
bravest, boldest fighters against Islamic State. Yet, recently Vice President
Biden, during a visit to Turkey, demanded that the Kurds return back over the
river from Syria into Iraq. The Kurds
were the first and only force that took on ISIS in Iraq on behalf of the
slaughtered Yezidi people. They were the first to win significant victories and
drove much of ISIS back into Syria where they pursued them.

What Biden seems to be unaware of
is that Kurds have always had a presence in Syria and, if America is genuine
about seeing the end of Assad, the Kurds are the ones that America should be
supporting in the joint effort to rid the suffering Syrians from the cruel
reign of Assad and the world of the abomination of ISIS.

Biden was also silent about
Turkey who sent tanks and troops over their border into Syria to attack and
kill Kurdish fighters who are there, at great risk, to annihilate Islamic
State.

Furthermore, there is something
pathetic about Pentagon officials rebuking Turkey for going after the Kurds
both in Iraq and Syria and then watch Turkey ignore them and continue targeting
the Kurds.

As Eran Lerman of the Begin-Sadat
Strategic Studies Center and an expert on Turkey, put it, “That is very
telling on the state of US authority right now.”

As Herb Keinon wrote in the
Jerusalem Post, “Turkey’s move I n Syria against US-backed Kurdish forces
who have fought against Syrian President Bashar Assad and Islamic State is more
evidence that the US right now carried little strategic weight in the region.”

Lerman agrees. “The will of
the United States of America has rarely carried less weight than it does now in
regional affairs. And that means that those of us who worry about regional
stability have to work together for ourselves.”

It’s complicated, but the US
should tell the Turks to lay off the Kurds. Biden told the Kurds that they
could be left without American support and defenseless to face Turkish planes,
artillery and tanks if they pressed further into Syria against ISIS. How
wrong-headed is that?

America also gave Turkey close
air support in the first two days of their incursion into Syria until they
discovered the Turks were going after the towns and villages near Jarabulus. This is where Kurdish-led Syrian rebels are located.

Understandably, the Kurds are
furious with American inconsistency.

It does look as if the Turks see that
America needs them more than they need America.

This is evident following Erdogan’s
recent meetings with Putin, the Chinese President and the Iranian Prime
Minister.

The United States needs to get
its act together, or vote in a very different Administration.

Barry
Shaw is the Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy at the Israel Institute for
Strategic Studies.